Vanishing White-Collar Jobs: Alternatives?
Jun 21st, 2009 | 3 responses
White-collar job opportunities are just drying up. A former scholar Matthew Crawford, a PhD. in political philosophy from University of Chicago who after his studies became a motorcycle mechanic, says “The trades suffer from low prestige. Because the work is dirty, many people assume it is also stupid. This is not my experience.”
Crawford writes in his book Shop Class as Soulcraft (and excerpted in The Week): “I turned full time to repair work several years ago after briefly serving as executive director of a policy organization in Washington. Landing the think tank position felt like a coup at the time. But certain perversities became apparent as I settled into the job.
“To me, there seems to be more real thinking going on in the bike shop than there was in the think tank. In fixing motorcycles you come up with several imagined trains of cause and effect for manifest symptoms, and you judge their likelihood before tearing anything down.
“Perhaps we should be encouraging all gifted students to learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their fingers will be crushed once or twice before they go on to run the country. There is good reason to suppose that responsibility has to be installed in the foundation of your mental equipment—at the level of perception and habit.” More here…
Reviewing the book, Reihan Salam, associate editor at The Atlantic, co-author of Grand New Party, says: “Shop Class as Soulcraft is easily the most compelling polemic since The Closing of the American Mind. Crawford offers a stunning indictment of the modern workplace, detailing the many ways it deadens our senses and saps our vitality. Better still, Crawford points in the direction of a richer, more fulfilling way of life. This is a book that will endure.”
CNNMoney reports: “Forty-eight states (in the US) and the District of Columbia recorded unemployment rate increases in May, the government reported Friday. Michigan once again led the nation with a 14.1% jobless rate, up from 12.9% a month earlier, followed again by Oregon at 12.4%, up from 12% in April. Thirteen states have rates above 10%.
“The national unemployment rate rose to a 26-year high of 9.4% in May, up from 8.9% in April.” More here…
3 Responses to “Vanishing White-Collar Jobs: Alternatives?”
[...] studies became a motorcycle mechanic, says “The trades suffer from low prestige. Because … Read Full Post: Vanishing White-Collar Jobs: Alternatives? – The Moderate Voice Adding Related Info:Trading a white collar for blue – CNN MoneyBlue-collar Bill – Santa Rosa Press [...]
I just purchased that book and am taking it on my vacation to the mountains next week, along with a couple of others. Very much looking forward to reading it.
My curiosity is peaked as well. I'm curious to know what the author will land on as his ultimate moral of the story since there seems to be several different ones that could be landed upon.
I'm especially curious as to whether this could be just a rediscovery by the younger generation of what baby boomers lived as a matter of course……everyone's starting point was manual labor and you aspired to white collar. If your brake pads wore thin, you swung by Western Tire on the way home, bought the pads and replaced then in between getting the homework done. It was just part of life.
College was a culling out of those who could also master the more abstract and wanted to move your life in that direction. Perhaps the author is attesting to the fact that the horse still needs to come before the cart and just “entitling” everyone to a desk job doesn't necessarily make sense.